3/18/2023 0 Comments Succubus artHorrible, aren’t they? Perhaps, but remember the source of said rumor mill, the Catholic Church… These are the same people who burned all the witches, ala medicine women, and thus helped plunge Europe into the Black Plague for which no medically adept women with herbal medicine could help treat or thwart the disease’s spread. Yet the story doesn’t end there, as the thieving succubus would pass along the stolen semen of her victims to an Incubi, the male versions of her kind, and they would then deposit the corrupted seed into the wombs of women they enchanted to create Cambions, or worse yet children of dark conscious or physical birth defects. Anyone continually partaking of nights with succubi would wither and die, their life drained from them by the vicious and insatiable demon. It was said that the succubus would come to a man in a dream, dressed in the guise of a beautiful woman, and take his seed. Throughout Europe during the Middle-Ages the succubus was blamed for all manner of dark deeds and birth defects. However, there is a great reference in the life of Pope Sylvester II in which he proclaims on his death bed that he attained his position as pope with the help of a succubus, so I guess they can’t be all bad, right? Now I’m just spit-balling here, but what’s with Archangel Samael? This angel is supposed to be good, right? I mean, isn’t that the definition of ‘angel’, and yet he gets around like a Sunset Blvd pimp, and everyone he sleeps with becomes a demonic man sucker… I mean, I’m just sayin…Īnyway, once Lilith was entrenched in this lore, it took little for the already ‘ scrambling to declaw women at all costs’ Christian Church to further her decline into evil. In the Zoharistic Kabbalah the tale holds that four different queens, Lilith, Agrat Bat Mahlat, Naamah, and Eisheth Zenunim mated with archangel Samael and became succubi in the process. However, her road to ruin only continues in Jewish folklore from there. My thought here, ‘Well why should she? She just bagged an archangel for Pete’s sake!’ The story continues that Lilith hooks up with the archangel Samael and then refused to return to the Garden of Eden. Interesting indeed… So in essence, the Iconic Female Succubus is actually on par with mankind instead of simply being cast from his form, and therefore she’s thrown under a bus. Lilith, the first woman in Adams life, and probably the better choice. It isn’t until he breaks with Lilith because she refuses to become subservient to him that Eve is created from Adam’s rib, and therefore a part of man instead of his equal. Here, Adam, product of God that we know in the Christian Bible, takes Lilith as his first wife since she was created from the same earth as he. In those cultures, they had references to a dream-haunting demon named Lilitu, but it isn’t until the early Jewish faith breaks onto the scene that we find Lilith, the presumed first ‘modern’ succubus, mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud. When you start reading society keywords like Mesopotamian or Babylonian, you know you are getting serious about a demon’s age. You see, as far as I can tell, Succubi are really old, like the dawn of history old. Still, other than D&D trivia, what do we really know about the succubus other than she’s inherently hot? Well, I did a bit of digging, and what do you know, I found that there is a reason, other than sexual attraction, for me to like a good old-fashioned succubus. Cambions, for all you playing a copy of the home trivia game, are the product of a human female mating with a demon, and they are always male. That tome described them as the offspring of a mating between a succubi and a human, and that these progeny are always female. This character inspired a deep affection for Alu-demons which first appeared in Monster Manual II and were drawn by Harry Quinn. For my own fantasy gaming succubus legends, I have a couple, but I suppose my most famous comes not from the succubus herself, but from a succubus’s torrid affair with a Drow wizard that produced an Alu-demon known only as Mithelvarn’s Daughter. This sexuality is certainly the key to making the succubus an Iconic Female, and there is little doubt that countless images of feral succubus abound in any fantasy setting worth its salt. Sutherland III, has been the subject of much debate over the years, but one thing no one can argue is whether or not it’s sexually inspiring to teenage boys. I can’t tell you for sure the first time I saw a succubus, but I’d lay money that it was in the 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Tony DiTerlizzi does the Succubus right for AD&D's Planescape!
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